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Advance Praise for The Gilded Years
“In this gripping, tension-filled story, Tanabe reveals to us the impossible
choices that one woman was forced to make when she decided to follow
her dream for a better life. As with many courageous acts, controversy
follows our heroine, and for that reason alone, book clubs will find much
to discuss here.”
—Kathleen Grissom, New York Times bestselling author of
The Kitchen House
“Tanabe weaves a tale rich with historical detail and heartbreaking human
emotion that demonstrates the complex and unjust choices facing a woman
of color in nineteenth-century America. That so many of the questions
explored by Tanabe about race, gender, ambition, and privilege still
resonate today makes this novel required reading.”
—Tara Conklin, New York Times bestselling author of
The House Girl
“A thrilling and foreboding tale about social and racial rules in nineteenth
century America . . . Tanabe’s narration is reminiscent of novels of the
1890s, with dialogue that is spot-on for that era. The compelling story
covers a shameful time in American history, and is unrelenting in its
tension and gripping detail.”
—Anna Jean Mayhew, author of The Dry Grass of August
“The true story of Anita Hemmings comes to life in vivid detail in The
Gilded Years. Hemmings’s gut-wrenching decision to pass as white in order
to obtain an education is a poignant journey, and Tanabe’s lyrical style is
sure to keep readers turning pages.”
—Renee Rosen, author of White Collar Girl
“The Gilded Years really brought home the horrific limitations and choices
that were faced by black people post–Civil War, even in the supposedly
more enlightened north. . . . That the story is based on true people only
added to its richness.”
—Laila Ibrahim, author of Yellow Crocus
Praise for The Price of Inheritance
“Readers will find plenty to savor . . . Carolyn is a winning character with a
quick wit, and the opulent environs she inhabits are definitely worth a visit.”
—The Washington Post
“A compelling novel of financial and emotional high stakes.”
—In Touch
6P_Tanabe_GildedYears_DN_rev2.indd 1 4/1/16 3:08 PM“Tanabe’s absorbing novel blends equal parts mystery, wit, and romance.”
—Booklist
“A deeply enjoyable and riotously funny takedown of the high-stakes New
York art world and its most glamorous and illicit auction houses. T anabe
focuses her shimmering humor and laser eye on the dangerous lengths
the very wealthy will journey to own a costly piece of history. Lushly
detailed and ambitious in scope, The Price of Inheritance is rich in romance,
war stories, and betrayals. A priceless read by a writer of immense talent.”
—Amber Dermont, New York Times bestselling author of
The Starboard Sea
“This absorbing, quick-turning story takes us behind the doors of the big
auction houses, into the homes of the art-collecting elite, and onto the
international marketplace with sure-handedness, and in fascinating detail.
Tanabe writes with passion, intelligence, and a lot of wit, and the book is
insanely difficult to put down.”
—Jessica Lott, author of The Rest of Us
“Tanabe pulls off a triple coup: she gives us a juicy insider’s look at the
high-stakes auction business, a late coming-of-age (and enticingly New
York) love story, and a truly suspenseful mystery that crosses borders from
Rhode Island to Iraq.”
—Allison Lynn, author of Now You See It
“Karin Tanabe weaves a tangled web of romance and intrigue, while expos-
ing the underbelly of the art world. This smart and captivating read will
have you turning pages faster than you can say forgery.”
—Emily Liebert, author of You Knew Me When
Praise for The List
“A biting, hilarious send-up of D.C.’s elite.”
—People
“Former Politico reporter Tanabe’s roman-a-clef is a hilarious skewering
of digital journalism—and how news is tweeted and blogged at a dizzying
pace by armies of underpaid and overworked twentysomething journos—
as well as a smartly paced and dishy debut, part political thriller, part
surprisingly sweet coming-of-age tale, and part timeless ode to dogged
reporters with good instincts and guts of steel.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A contemporary, politically astute novel that is both wickedly humorous
and enticing . . . [with] complex characters, an intriguing plot, and tightly
brilliant execution. When word gets around about The List, readers will
clamor for their copy and devour this book.”
—New York Journal of Books
6P_Tanabe_GildedYears_DN_rev2.indd 2 4/1/16 3:08 PM“Tanabe gleefully skewers digital media sweatshops . . . [but] despite its
breezy, chick-lit tone, The List has more in common with newsroom satires.”
—The Washington Post
“The List is mandatory reading for anyone who wonders about the impact
of new media on Washington’s political culture. Tanabe has written a novel
that is delicious fun and incredibly revealing about life at the intersection
of politics and journalism.”
—Nicole Wallace, New York Times bestselling author of
Eighteen Acres
“A gorgeous book—I loved it. Funny, intriguing, and utterly unputdownable.”
—Penny Vincenzi, internationally bestselling author of
More Than You Know
“The List is a wonderfully witty insider’s romp through Washington.
Tanabe has as sharp a tongue as she does an eye for detail about everything
from political scandal to office politics.”
—Cristina Alger, author of The Darlings
“The List is a breezy, dishy romp through Washington, D.C., politics,
journalism, and scandal—a witty and caffeinated glimpse into a world
few of us ever see, let alone know as intimately as Tanabe surely does.
But underneath the considerable pleasures of its glimmering surface,
it’s a surprisingly moving coming-of-age story about a young woman
navigating the bumpy terrain between ambition and ethics, between her
hunger for professional success, and the quiet truth of her own heart.”
—Lauren Fox, author of
Friends Like Us and Still Life with Husband
“Part coming-of-age, part political thriller, Tanabe’s The List is a m
ordantly
funny send-up of quadruple espresso–fueled journalism in the i nternet age,
with the most irresistible heroine since Bridget Jones at its center. This is
Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop for the twenty-first century.”
—Susan Fales-Hill, author of Imperfect Bliss
“Tanabe’s energetic, humorous debut is narrated by a young reporter
trying to prove herself by chasing the biggest story of the year. The List
perfectly captures the frenetic, all-consuming pace of political reporting,
with a healthy dose of scandal, glamour, and intrigue thrown in. Think
The Devil Wears Prada meets Capitol Hill.”
—Sarah Pekkanen, author of The Perfect Neighbors
6P_Tanabe_GildedYears_DN_rev2.indd 3 4/1/16 3:08 PMALSO BY KARIN TANABE
The List
The Price of Inheritance
6P_Tanabe_GildedYears_DN.indd 4 3/28/16 10:43 AMTHE GILDED
YEA R S
A Novel
Karin Tanabe
WA SH I NGTON SQUA R E PR E S S
New York London Toronto Sydney New Delhi
6P_Tanabe_GildedYears_DN.indd 5 3/28/16 10:43 AMWashington Square Press
An Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people,
or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events
are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual
events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Karin Tanabe
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions
thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Washington Square
Press Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas,
New York, NY 10020.
First Washington Square Press trade paperback edition June 2016
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Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Tanabe, Karin, author.
Title: The gilded years: a novel / Karin Tanabe.
Description: First Washington Square Press trade paperback edition. | New
York : Washington Square Press, 2016.
Classification: LCC PS3620.A6837 G55 2016 | DDC 813/.6—dc23 LC
record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015037370
ISBN 978-1-5011-1045-0
ISBN 978-1-5011-1046-7 (ebook)
6P_Tanabe_GildedYears_DN.indd 6 3/28/16 10:43 AMFor the VCVG —with love 6P_Tanabe_GildedYears_DN.indd 7 3/28/16 10:43 AM
6P_Tanabe_GildedYears_DN.indd 8 3/28/16 10:43 AM
There were in her at the moment two beings,
one drawing deep breaths of freedom and ex-
hilaration, the other gasping for air in a little
black prison-house of fears.
—Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth
6P_Tanabe_GildedYears_DN.indd 9 3/28/16 10:43 AM6P_Tanabe_GildedYears_DN.indd 10 3/28/16 10:43 AM
THE GIL DED
YEA R S
6P_Tanabe_GildedYears_DN.indd 11 3/28/16 10:43 AM6P_Tanabe_GildedYears_DN.indd 12 3/28/16 10:43 AM
chapter 1
A s the electric trolley turned the corner onto Ray-
mond Avenue, the driver sang out, “Vassar College!”
The elongated vowels of his coarse New York accent re-
verberated off the walls, though every woman sitting on
the wooden seats was already poised to disembark. Anita
Hemmings smiled at two freshman girls who looked at once
delighted and struck by nerves, and walked down the steps
to collect her suitcases. Her trunk had been sent ahead and
would be waiting for her in the school’s congested luggage
room, then brought up to her quarters by a porter.
The New York town of Poughkeepsie had boasted a
trolley only since 1894. In her freshman year, Anita had
arrived with her cases in a shaky horse-drawn tram, dusty
and soot-colored, and painted with the words hudson river
r.r. depot and a large gold number four. But for the past
three years, Vassar students had pulled up in the efficient
trolley, and she couldn’t think of a better way to approach
the Lodge, the handsome, red-brick gatehouse that served
as the campus’s entrance and guard post. Anita glanced up
at the clock atop its simple façade, centered above four long
windows. It was almost five o’clock. She had left Boston at
just past seven in the morning and hadn’t encountered any
6P_Tanabe_GildedYears_DN.indd 1 3/28/16 10:43 AM2 K A R I N TA NA BE
other Vassar girl until she changed trains in Albany. Now
she was just steps away from her favorite sliver of the world,
the college where she would reside for one more year.
Anita had never lived in a building that could be de-
scribed as handsome until she went off to school, first
in Massachusetts’s Pioneer Valley, then at Vassar. Her
hometown of Boston was crowded with elegant structures:
stately brick houses you could stroll past, imagining the fa-
vored lives transpiring inside. But she had never had more
than a glimpse of their sumptuous interiors. Here, on the
vast expanse of land Vassar occupied a few miles from the
gently curving Hudson River, every inch was hers—shared
with 522 other girls, but still hers.
In Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood, Anita, the oldest of
four, shared a small, red-brick row house with her parents;
her brothers, Frederick and Robert; and her sister, Eliza-
beth. It was indistinguishable from its squat neighbors, with
a roof that leaked and too few rooms for six. She knew every
vein of Roxbury, every needy character in the quarter, and
was keenly aware that her friends at Vassar had not grown
up in such a place.
“Is that Anita Hemmings?”
At the sound of her name, she turned to see the alabas-
ter face of Caroline Hyde Hardin. The puffs of Caroline’s
dress sleeves were bigger than last year’s, and she wore the
trumpet-shaped, S-curved skirt that had become even more
in vogue over the summer. Anita fretted for a moment over
her travel-weary appearance, but her tension vanished as
she was enveloped in a welcoming hug.
“Caroline!” she exclaimed, as her friend stepped back
and wiped strands of red hair from her face. It was Septem-
ber 18, but the day was thick with the dense heat of a mid-
July afternoon.
6P_Tanabe_GildedYears_DN.indd 2 3/28/16 10:43 AMT H E GI L DE D Y E A R S 3
“I could tell it was you,” said Caroline. “You walk so el-
egantly, even when you’re laden down. Where is Mervis to
help us?” she said, looking around for the porter everyone
preferred.
“He’s just assisting with the trunks of a few other girls
who came on the earlier trains. He’ll be back down,” Anita
said, smoothing her light summer dress and taking Caro-
line’s hand, unable to hide her pleasure at being back on cam-
pus. “Oh, how I missed this beautiful place,” she said, nodding
toward the ivy-clad, Renwick-designed Main Building.
The circle in front of Main was crowded with carriages,
tired horses, and girls bidding their families goodbye while
vying for help with their boxes and suitcases. Before Anita
and Caroline had arrived at Vassar as freshmen in 1893,
Main had a regal entry with a double staircase leading to
an impressive second-floor door, but a long annex had been
added to the center of the building that year, courtesy of
the school’s favorite trustee, Frederick Ferris Thompson.
The students called it Uncle Fred’s Nose or the Soap Box,
for its ample use of white marble. It now housed the ever-
expanding library, where the students spent many an eve-
ning trying to push to the top of their class.
“It’s enormous, but it does look smaller every year,
doesn’t it?” said Anita. “Perhaps because we’ve become more
comfortable here.”
She was right on both counts. The building, built to
mimic the Tuileries Palace in Paris, was monumental in
size, with five floors crisscrossed by halls twelve feet wide
and almost two hundred yards long. On the roof were six
thousand feet of lightning rods to help prevent the inces-
sant threat of fire.
Caroline and Anita headed inside and were greeted by a
chorus of delighted voices.
6P_Tanabe_GildedYears_DN.indd 3 3/28/16 10:43 AM4 K A R I N TA NA BE
“Where did you spend your summer, Anita?” Caroline
asked before they were both absorbed into the feminine
gaggle.
“Nowhere exotic, I’m afraid. I was just home in Boston
and then on Martha’s Vineyard again. My usual summer
holiday in charming Cottage City. At home I tutored Greek
to several girls preparing for Vassar’s entrance exam. I
hope some will be freshmen next year, though I believe a
proficiency in Greek and Latin is less important than it
used to be.”
“Isn’t that refreshing to hear? I am wretched at Greek.
That class on Thucydides and Pausanias last spring tied
my brain into knots, though not yours.” Caroline spread
her arms as if she were about to clutch the building and let
them drop when several families saying farewell to their
freshmen moved by.
“Were you back in the Middle East, Caroline?” Anita
asked, fixing her grip on her small bag.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “For most of the summer I was in
Syria, then we spent some time exploring Italy and France.
I wanted to spend more time in Venice, which is just the
most enchanting place on earth, a world floating on water,
but Father had me working in his school for most of June
and July. Lessons in Christianity, lessons in biology, lessons
in just about everything. But August was so dreadfully hot
that we had to leave.”
Caroline’s father ran a large school in Syria, and she had
an abundance of captivating stories about her childhood
there. Anita had been nowhere but the American Northeast
and clung to Caroline’s tales as if they were Scheherazade’s.
“Are you rooming with Elise Monroe again, Anita?”
asked Caroline, waving to a friend who had just entered the
building.
6P_Tanabe_GildedYears_DN.indd 4 3/28/16 10:43 AMT H E GI L DE D Y E A R S 5
“No, didn’t you hear? She’s left school to be married.”
“Has she!” said Caroline, her attention fully on Anita. “Is
she marrying the Browning boy? The one who was such a
star at Yale?”
“The very one. He’s from Washington, and they’re to be
married there just before Thanksgiving.”
“Congratulations to the soon-to-be Mrs. Browning,
then. Though it’s sad that her parents didn’t let her finish
up one more year here. She was so strong in drama. Such a
knack for comedic delivery. I’ll miss her in the hall plays.”
Anita nodded in agreement and the friends meandered
through Main, heading up to the senior hall on what every-
one called the third floor, though it was the fourth story of
the building, a floor above where they had roomed the year
before. They took the stairs, as the elevator had a line down
the hall.
“If Elise is gone, then who is your roommate this year?”
asked Caroline, taking a piece of paper from her case with
her room number on it. “Or do you have a single, too?”
“No, I’m rooming with Louise Taylor, from New York.”
Caroline looked at Anita with surprise. “Louise Taylor!
As in Lottie Taylor? I never thought she would be short
a roommate. How did that happen? Isn’t she rooming
with Dora Fairchild again? They have for two years now.
They’re awfully close.”
“Dora stayed on in London, it seems, after her summer
travels,” said Anita. “Much to the shock and disappointment
of Lottie. Kendrick informed me of everything just a few
weeks ago. I thought I might be placed in a single in Strong
Hall, but I don’t mind.”
“You’ve already communicated with Kendrick? Aren’t
you the lucky one,” said Caroline of their admired lady
principal.
6P_Tanabe_GildedYears_DN.indd 5 3/28/16 10:43 AM6 K A R I N TA NA BE
“Do you know Louise well?” Anita asked, trying to catch
her breath after the climb.
“Lottie?” said Caroline, in a suddenly serious voice. “I
would say we’re friends, even close friends, but in truth I
know her just like everyone knows her.”
Anita looked questioningly at her classmate, hoping she
would say more.
“Well, I know of her money and her palatial house in
New York,” said Caroline, picking up on Anita’s curiosity.
“It’s right near the Vanderbilts’ on Fifth Avenue, you know.
Of course you do. It was the talk freshman year. She’s also
very close to the Rockefellers. Bessie Rockefeller Strong,
who was a special student here in the eighties and is Mr.
Rockefeller’s eldest, is a mentor to her. Or so they say.
Bessie is the one who suggested Vassar to Clarence Taylor,
Lottie’s father. Lottie is also friendly with Consuelo Vander-
bilt. She was a guest at her wedding last year to the Duke
of Marlborough. You know, the one held at St. Thomas’
Church that the papers made such a fuss about.”
She looked at her friend to see if she was still listening
and saw Anita’s eyes were wide with fascination.
“You saw the pictures, I’m sure. The New York Times
even ran that ridiculous piece on the luxury of her trous-
seau, paying particular attention to her intimate wears. I
don’t think the whole of America needed to read about the
lace on her ivory corset covers, though it was all quite an af-
fair. People lined up for days in front of St. Thomas’ to get a
glimpse of her. Consuelo and her swanlike neck. Not Lottie.
She was inside the church along with her parents and her
very handsome brother, now up at Harvard. A towhead like
her. He’s been on campus before. Younger, but not young
enough for it to matter. So I know quite a bit about that, and
I know the rumors of what happened between Lottie and
6P_Tanabe_GildedYears_DN.indd 6 3/28/16 10:43 AMT H E GI L DE D Y E A R S 7
Lewis Van de Graff, of the Philadelphia Van de Graffs, at
Harvard last year. Everyone here says she’s very fast. But I
don’t really know her as a best friend would, though I’d like
to. We’re both in Philaletheis, though I’m Chapter Beta and
she’s Chapter Theta.”
Caroline put her hand on the wooden rail and exhaled
loudly, as if she was surprised by her own knowledge of
Lottie Taylor. Caroline and Lottie had been members of
Philaletheis together for three years, the college’s exclu-
sive dramatic society and oldest club, but rooming with a
woman once described as a speeding locomotive with hair
by the Harvard senior class president was another thing
entirely.
“I’m sure you two will get on,” she concluded. “She’s
just . . . quite a girl. Yes, that’s a good way to put it. She’s
quite a girl.”
Anita had known that Lottie’s family was well-off but
could not visualize to what extent. Caroline uttering Lot-
tie’s name in the same breath as John Rockefeller—who had
funded the school’s first separate dormitory and was fund-
ing a new academic building to break ground that year—
was constricting her breathing even further. And then there
was Consuelo Vanderbilt. All the Vassar girls followed her
doings, but Caroline had said Lottie actually attended her
wedding. Anita’s starched traveling dress suddenly felt very
tight. She put down her bag and reached up to loosen the
stiff lace collar.
“Anita, are you unwell?” asked Caroline.
Anita flushed in embarrassment and bent to pick up her
things. “I don’t know what came over me. It must be this
awful heat. I feel a bit faint.”
“Come, let’s walk down to senior hall and get settled in,”
said Caroline, taking her arm. “Those stairs were dreadful.
6P_Tanabe_GildedYears_DN.indd 7 3/28/16 10:43 AM8 K A R I N TA NA BE
One of the maids can fetch you something cool to drink. Of
course it’s the heat. They need to open some of these win-
dows and circulate the air.” Caroline said as much to one of
the young maids, and the two moved away from the other
girls still greeting one another as if they’d been off fighting
a war, rather than just separated by a summer vacation.
As they walked to the seniors’ area, Anita thought about
her idiocy in agreeing to share rooms with Lottie Taylor.
She didn’t want to be housed with anyone prominent,
anyone who might attract attention. She needed a nobody
from nowhere so she could keep walking quietly through
the crowd of Vassar women, well liked, but not too well
liked; active in school, but not president of any esteemed
club; smart enough, but not first in her class—nothing that
would make her shine too brightly or fall too hard. She
wanted to be smiled at and then quickly forgotten.
“I’m here in room eighty-nine,” said Caroline, as they
reached it. “Will you be all right to walk to yours?”
“Me? Oh, yes, I’m feeling much better now. Just a quick
spell. I’m in room twenty-one, right in front of the art
gallery,” said Anita, pointing down the hall. “I’ll see you at
dinner, Caroline.”
“You’re in twenty-one?” said Caroline, looking down at
the hallway’s double marble staircase near Anita’s room.
“But that’s the very best senior room, with a perfect view of
the Lodge. How did you draw that one? Oh, never mind,”
she said, smiling and opening her door. “Lottie Taylor,” she
whispered.
Caroline was in a single, a bedroom without a parlor, and
a less desirable view.
“I’m so happy to be back, aren’t you?” Anita said, watch-
ing her friend walk into her bright, sparsely furnished room.
“I am, too, Anita. There’s no place I love more.”
6P_Tanabe_GildedYears_DN.indd 8 3/28/16 10:43 AMT H E GI L DE D Y E A R S 9
The girls bid each other goodbye, and Anita turned the
corner toward her room, opening the oak door with her
free hand.
“Just leave it by the desk closest to the window, please,”
she heard a voice say at once. Anita saw Lottie, her back to
the door, trying to nail a square of ornate silk fabric above
their parlor window.
“I’m sorry,” Anita replied. “You must be waiting for your
trunk.” Lottie turned to look at her with a nail in her mouth
and nearly dropped the hammer. She took the nail out and
gave her an apologetic smile.
“You’re Anita Hemmings! And you must think me the
rudest girl in the world. I’m sorry I didn’t turn around. I
thought you were Mervis with my things.”
“It’s nothing at all,” Anita said, walking into the already
heavily decorated room. “I saw Mervis downstairs, but
I’m afraid he’s extremely busy. I’m sure our trunks will be
brought up soon. Though I think they’ll have to be attended
to by someone else. Every senior girl in Main seems to be
after him.” As with most of the accommodations in Main,
Anita and Lottie had a set of three rooms with two bed-
rooms and a large shared parlor.
“Fine, fine. I’m in no particular rush,” said Lottie
brightly. “I have all the accessories I need to get our parlor
in order right here.” Both girls looked at the floor of their
square room, which was covered in fabrics and paintings.
Lottie paused her chatter as she stepped down from her
chair. In her white dress, with her blond hair pinned to her
head and the dying evening light creating a shadow behind
her, she looked as if she had flown down from somewhere
much finer, somewhere celestial.
“Look at you, you’re even prettier than everybody said,”
she pronounced, approaching Anita. “I remembered you,
6P_Tanabe_GildedYears_DN.indd 9 3/28/16 10:43 AM10 K A R I N TA NA BE
of course, but we didn’t overlap much in classes, did we?
You’re very Greek and Latin, I hear. I like Asian history
and the sciences.” She extended her hand, then held Anita
by the shoulders as a mother might do to a child who had
just come in from playing outside.
“Just look at your hair,” she said excitedly. “Straight and
dark like an Indian’s. I’m very jealous. My life’s desire is
to be able to tame this top,” she said, tilting her head. “My
mother tried, my maids tried, all in vain, I might add. When
I was fifteen, my parlor maid burned about half of it off. I
wore many hats that year.”
“I hate hats,” Anita said, laughing.
“Oh, me too,” Lottie said, smiling with her. “So old-
fashioned. If it were up to me, I would spend the entire
day lounging in my golf costume. I do love golf. A modern
woman’s game. Or I’d be totally nude like the French.”
She looked at Anita’s surprised face, enjoying her re-
action. “You’re going to be an awful lot of fun to shock.
That’s apparent already, and it’s scarcely been five minutes.
We need to shake a little of that puritanical Boston out of
you before the semester’s end or we won’t have any fun at
all.” She spun around the room, already comfortable in her
roommate’s presence.
“Did you know a princess lived in this room? A real one.
Sutematsu Yamakawa. Or Stematz Yamakawa, as she was
known here. She now holds the title of Princess Oyama
of Japan. Vassar class of 1882 and the very first Japanese
woman to receive a college degree. Ever. You’ve heard the
stories about her, have you not?”
Anita shook her head. She was familiar with the exotic
name, but it was clear that Lottie knew the better stories.
“A woman of legend,” Lottie declared. “President of
Philaletheis. President of ’82 her sophomore year. Third in
6P_Tanabe_GildedYears_DN.indd 10 3/28/16 10:43 AMT H E GI L DE D Y E A R S 11
her class. And such penmanship. I’ve seen her letters, barely
an inch left without text, and she still keeps in contact with
her professors. She married the Japanese minister of war.
Isn’t that charming? War is so dramatic, it’s hard not to be
taken with it. I curse the world that I wasn’t born before the
Civil War. I would have been so good at it. Well, at being
supportive. As for Princess Oyama, I hear her husband is
afraid that she’ll divulge national secrets, but I’m sure she’ll
remain tight-lipped. I plan on meeting her one day quite
soon so I’ve been practicing my bow. The royals expect you
to bend at a full forty-five-degree angle.”
Anita had no idea where one heard that a princess might
pose a threat to Japanese national security, but she didn’t
doubt Lottie.
“I can’t even recount to you the lies I had to tell to secure
us these rooms,” said Lottie, fluttering her eyelashes as if
she’d been caught in a rainstorm. “I made up a whole to-do
about not being able to sleep unless I could see straight
down the dusty drive to the Lodge. Then I added some
nonsense about extreme claustrophobia and an incurable
passion for the architecture of James Renwick. But it was
worth it, I’m sure you’ll agree.”
Anita looked at her in awe and nodded.
“I’m simply enamored with Japan. This school is so
backward not teaching the Asian languages,” said Lottie,
looking wistfully at the room’s décor, most of it picked up
during her travels in the Orient.
“Caroline Hardin will teach you off-color words in Ara-
bic if you bring her molasses candy,” Anita offered.
“Caroline can eat all the candy she wants. Arabia does
not interest me. The art is poor, and there isn’t enough fish
to eat.” Lottie sucked in her cheeks and pursed her lips, mak-
ing little underwater noises. Anita wasn’t sure which world
6P_Tanabe_GildedYears_DN.indd 11 3/28/16 10:43 AM12 K A R I N TA NA BE
Lottie had sprung from, but she was already convinced it
was one she wanted to be a part of.
“Oh, look, our rocking chair from Uncle Fred,” Lottie
said, running her hand over the curved chair that was paid
for and placed in every dormitory room by the prominent
trustee. “I used to sit in mine all the time last year when I’d
had too much to drink. I’d just collapse like a rag doll and
sleep it off.”
“Do you drink often?” her roommate asked, hoping she
didn’t sound prudish.
“Anita, dearest. One has to live a little, don’t you think?”
Lottie looked up with her pale, heart-shaped face, which
clearly favored mischief over morals.
“Of course,” Anita replied hastily, though on campus she
was noted for her reserve.
“With your beauty, you are destined to live a dramatic
life,” said Lottie, putting her hand on Anita’s chin and
studying her face. “Living, really living, is awfully enter-
taining. We’ll do a lot of it this year, I promise you.” She
peered around the room at the wall hangings she had put up
before Anita’s arrival. In between the draped blue silk was
an exquisite kimono, hand-painted with a mountain scene
and cascading pink cherry blossoms on the back.
“Let’s tack this cloth to the wall by that kimono,” Lottie
said, reaching for a few yards of fabric and picking up a
scroll painting of evergreen rice paper with her other hand.
“The maids go on about cluttering up the room like this,
because dust gathers or some nonsense, and they’re worried
we’ll burn the whole place down when it falls into the oil
lamps, but I don’t care. I am not living in bland quarters. My
mind won’t expand. And for me to keep up here, my mind
needs a lot of expanding.”
“I like what you’ve done with it so far. It’s much more
6P_Tanabe_GildedYears_DN.indd 12 3/28/16 10:43 AMT H E GI L DE D Y E A R S 13
striking than my parlor room last year,” her roommate said.
Their room looked like a fourteen-by-fourteen-foot adver-
tisement for luxury travel to the Orient.
Lottie let the fabric drop and admired her work.
“Well, as I said, I am besotted with Japan at the moment.
I traveled to Tokyo and Kyoto in July and August with Fa-
ther, and it was majestic. I can’t even begin to describe the
people. So slight, so diminutive and elegant. They walk on
wooden shoes, can you imagine? And they wear long silk
kimonos and the food is beautifully presented. Plus the fish!
You haven’t eaten a fish until you’ve eaten a raw Japanese
fish. I know it sounds dreadful, but it’s just the opposite.
And then of course there is the actual art. The paintings
and calligraphy, the woodblock prints. My father bought
an original Hokusai, whose work is causing a sensation in
Paris. His name will make it to America soon. We’re behind,
of course. Isn’t that always the case? I tried to bring the
print here, but you can guess how that conversation ter-
minated. I’m going to sail to Japan again after graduation.
Father promised me I could, as long as I’m chaperoned. I
want to go all over the Orient. You should accompany me.
We’d have a magnificent time.”
Anita knew that within days of graduation, she would
have a sensible teaching job or a scholarship to another
school. And not one across the Pacific Ocean.
“It sounds splendid,” Anita said noncommittally, divert-
ing the conversation from any future plans.
“I am so taken with Orientals,” said Lottie. “They have
the most marvelous features.” She picked up the hammer
and headed to the wall above the ornate lacquer tea table,
delivered from overseas just that morning.
“You don’t mind, do you?” she asked, after she had al-
ready put the first hole in the plaster.
1P_Tanabe_GildedYears_REP_DN.indd 13 7/6/16 1:17 PM14 K A R I N TA NA BE
“Not at all,” Anita answered honestly.
“I told Father that I was going to marry the future
emperor of Japan, Crown Prince Yoshihito,” she said with
her back turned and a nail between her teeth again. “And
he said he would shoot me first. He meant it, too. He has
several guns and a terrible temper.” She spat out the nail
so she could be better heard. “It’s not like I said I was
going to run off with a despondent railroad worker with an
opium pipe. A sensitive man, my father, but a real modern
person despite it all. I forgave him because he’s originally
from Pittsburgh, and people from Pittsburgh are natural
brutes. It’s a good thing my mother was born in New York
or I would be an absolute lost cause and never get invited
anywhere of note. Mrs. Astor has a real disdain for people
from Pittsburgh.”
She looked around the room again and jumped onto the
small green velvet couch.
“Come, Anita, let’s tack this all up to the walls and make
this room look like a palace.” She grabbed her roommate by
the hand and handed her a small nail and the hammer she
had been using. “You try this. I’ll wield my Latin dictionary.
It will have the most use it’s had in years. Just be mindful
of the noise because if Mervis hears us, we’re sure to get
fined.”
“Fined?” Anita asked, crossing to the opposite wall.
“It’s worth it, don’t you think? I was fined at the start of
every semester last year, but we can’t be expected to live in
some desolate chamber. How will we learn anything? You
should have seen my parlor as a freshman. That was the
year I was absolutely taken with the French Revolution.
This year’s décor will be decidedly cheaper, as the Japanese
really do have a simpler aesthetic. Plus, if my father doesn’t
receive fines from the college, he will think I’m in ill health
1P_Tanabe_GildedYears_REP_DN.indd 14 7/6/16 1:17 PMT H E GI L DE D Y E A R S 15
and have lost my spirit. This,” she said, motioning to the
room, “is in everybody’s best interest.”
The roommates finished tacking up the silk just as Mer-
vis came in with their trunks, grunting about the walls.
Lottie smiled sweetly and told him to make out the bill to
Mr. Clarence Taylor, then she sent for a maid who helped
the pair put away their dresses.
“I’m starving,” Lottie declared after she had placed her
silver hairbrush on the table by her bed and her silver ink-
stand on the writing table. Anita had done the same in her
room with her modest belongings.
“How about we walk over for an ice cream at the
Dutchess? Is there still time to get a leave of absence to go
to town?” Lottie asked.
“I believe the Dutchess is closed now. It’s nearly six
o’clock,” Anita replied, looking at the gold clock by Lottie’s
bed. “The dinner bell will ring soon.”
“Not those awful bells,” said Lottie, sticking her tongue
out like a gargoyle. “Isn’t it horrible that we have to run
around listening to the cling clang of old bells? The rising
hour bell, the dinner bell, the chapel bell—I feel like the
Hunchback of Notre Dame.”
Anita laughed and said, “You don’t look it.”
“Really?” Lottie said, puffing up her cheeks. “I feel quite
like a French hunchback today. I hate the sleeves on this
dress,” she added, trying to pull them up at the shoulder. “I
told my seamstress in Paris to make them bigger, but she’s
so conservative and her answer to everything is ‘Non, ma
chérie.’ Not shockingly, she makes my mother’s day clothes,
and I tend to hate my mother’s day clothes. For eveningwear
I much prefer the House of Worth, but Mother said I wasn’t
allowed to train up in my Lyon silk. Anyway, you should go
on. I know you were voted class beauty as a freshman. Don’t
1P_Tanabe_GildedYears_REP_DN.indd 15 7/6/16 1:17 PM16 K A R I N TA NA BE
try to deny it. And I heard all about you and your big, beau-
tiful brown eyes from a few of my Harvard acquaintances,
too.”
Anita’s surprised look caused Lottie to elaborate. “I said
acquaintances, Anita. Don’t tell me you believe all of that
gossip. One little dalliance during the Harvard-Yale game
as a sophomore and I’m a scorned woman. Vassar girls sure
can talk. I don’t have a flaxen-haired daughter hidden in a
convent in Switzerland, if you happen to be wondering.”
“I hadn’t heard that one,” Anita replied, thoroughly en-
tertained.
“Well, I don’t. What I do have is a younger brother in his
junior year at Harvard, and he told me that you were quite
the talk of the school after our Founder’s Day dance last
spring. Many Harvard men in attendance, if you remember.
Yes, I launched an inquisition on you, Miss Hemmings.”
It was unfortunate that Anita hadn’t done the same.
As Anita contemplated what rooming with Lottie Tay-
lor would mean for her final year at Vassar, she heard a light
knock on their parlor door.
“Come in!” bellowed Lottie in her low, raspy voice. Anita
speculated that Lottie’s voice was half the reason so many
rumors circulated about her. There was something quite
intoxicating about it.
The door opened slowly, and a tall girl bounded in,
earning smiles from both roommates. Belle Tiffany, an alto
in the choir and the Glee Club, was one of Anita’s closest
friends.
“Belle Tiffany! Look at you,” said Lottie. “See, I’m room-
ing with your old friend Anita Hemmings. The beautiful
girls with the soaring voices. What will I do with myself
around both of you? I need to develop a skill. I’m a terrible
disappointment.”
6P_Tanabe_GildedYears_DN.indd 16 3/28/16 10:43 AMT H E GI L DE D Y E A R S 17
“You’re exceedingly rich,” said Belle, looking at the dec-
orated walls. “And I suppose you’re amusing, too.”
“That’s true. I am awfully funny,” said Lottie, hopping
onto the couch again. “Matthew Ellery, Lucy Ellery’s brother
up at Harvard, he was my Phil date last year, and he said I
was the most entertaining girl he had ever known. Then
he said men aren’t supposed to be fond of girls who favor
humor over femininity. But then when I laughed and said I
found the whole thing quite amusing, the beast leaned over
and kissed me. And I mean kissed. Not just with his mouth,
with his entire body, especially the middle. If we hadn’t been
clothed, who knows what would have happened?”
“Lottie, stop trying to shock. We’re seniors now. We’re
immune to your alarming ways,” said Belle.
“Speak for yourself. I’m sure I’ll make Anita Hemmings
faint before the semester is over. Besides, do you want me to
graduate without so much as kissing a few Harvard seniors?”
“Most say you’ve done quite a bit more than that,” teased
Belle.
“Belle, don’t start rumors. Even if they are true,” said
Lottie, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror propped
on her dressing table. “And Anita, try not to look as if you’re
going to wilt. I’ll burn your books if I have to—it’s our last
year here, and I won’t spend it stuck in Uncle Fred’s Nose
reading Beowulf.”
“You read Beowulf as a freshman. You aren’t required
to read it again,” said Belle. “And have as much fun as you
want, Lottie, just remember that you should graduate like
the rest of us or your father will write you out of his will.”
Belle winked at Anita. “Lottie’s father is a major financial
supporter of women’s education. He was asked to be a
trustee, but he said not until his daughter had graduated.
Did you hear that, Lottie? Critical detail, graduated.”
6P_Tanabe_GildedYears_DN.indd 17 3/28/16 10:43 AM18 K A R I N TA NA BE
“Belle, hold your judgment until we’ve reached the finish
line. I’ll graduate. Maybe not with the highest honors, but
I will. You’ll both just have to help me.”
When the roommates came back from dinner that
evening—where they were happily assigned to a senior
table with Caroline, Belle, and Belle’s roommate, Hortense
Lewis—Lottie boiled water for tea with lemon and Anita lit
a lamp between them.
“I do miss electric lamps,” Lottie said, watching Anita
fiddle with the gas. “I was getting rather used to them and
look at us now, back like moths to a flame.”
“Do you have electricity at home?” Anita asked, trying
to make the gas stream stronger. Her own house in Boston
only had gas lamps, and a very limited number at that.
“Oh, yes, my father had every lamp installed with elec-
tric wiring, though some chandeliers are constructed for
both gas and electricity. It’s glorious. You just use a switch,
on and off. One day we’ll have them here, but not for years
and years. We’ll be long gone by then, living our extraordi-
nary ordinary lives.”
“Caroline Hardin told me you were rather exceptional,”
Anita said, sipping her tea. She stood up to open their large
parlor window, as the heat of the day had burned off and the
air from the river had turned in their direction.
“Caroline Hardin did? My favorite Syrian redhead?”
“The very one.”
“And what do you think of that?” said Lottie.
“I think Caroline Hardin is usually right,” she said dip-
lomatically. Lottie twinkled a smile, the dimples on her face
looking more pronounced in the lamplight.
The two prepared for bed under walls draped in silks
and kimonos and pictures of Kyoto. Somewhere, tucked in
among the Japonisme, was Anita’s small photograph of a
6P_Tanabe_GildedYears_DN.indd 18 3/28/16 10:43 AMT H E GI L DE D Y E A R S 19
statue of the Greek goddess Artemis, taken in the Louvre
and given to her by one of the Harvard seniors Lottie men-
tioned. It seemed somehow fitting that her contribution to
their rooms was so small. The Lottie Taylors of the world
were always the ones to have an enormous impact.
6P_Tanabe_GildedYears_DN.indd 19 3/28/16 10:43 AMYou can also read
